Animal taming
Description
Taming is a skill used to make an animal a pet. You can only have one pet at a time, so if you have a pet and tame another, your first pet will become untamed. Pets that become untamed will return to their normal hostile or non-hostile stance; ie. if the animal is normally hostile then it will begin attacking guards and players.
There is a penalty to taming for Blacklighters; taming is still possible but with a higher level of difficulty.
Only animals can be tamed; for monsters you need to be a Priest/Priestess and a follower of Magranon or Libila.
- A Priest/Priestess of Magranon at 40 faith can cast Dominate to tame monsters.
- A Priest/Priestess of Libila at 40 faith can cast Rebirth to raise the spirit of a slain animal, monster or player as a zombie pet.
Characteristics gained
Soul / Soul strength, Soul depth
Method
You can tame an animal by activating an item that it will eat, then right-click the animal and choose Tame. For some animals the item is seeds, for others it is meat or fish (also fileted).
The QL of the taming item speeds up the taming action, for about 1 second per 20 QL.
Taming Skill and Status of Animal
- 0-10 Upset
- 10-20 Nervous
- 20-30 Submissive
- 30-40 Calm
- 40-50 Tame
- 50-60 Loyal
- 60-70 Trusting
- 70-99 Extremely loyal
The taming status can be used to know when your animal will go untame. When you tame an animal numerous times, then at a 42 taming skill, for example, your animal will have a maximum "tamed level" of [42]. Over time, this value will decay. Examining the animal to check its status can tell you on average how high this level is, with "upset" being the least reliable status, as your animal could go untame without further warning.
If a pet is hit, it will lose loyalty. Stronger animals lose more loyalty when hit than weaker animals.
Handling Pet
A pet can be ordered to go somewhere or to attack other animals or people. You can also lead a pet with a rope.
A pet can't be tamed by another person while it is your pet. A higher taming skill will probably make the animal stay longer as your pet.
You can decide if your pet should go offline or stay online when you log off. Right-click something and select Pet > Go offline/online.
You can give your pet to another person: right-click on the person and select Pet > Give away pet. They may need to type /invitations command first. They must not have a pet before. Their own taming skill must be high enough to keep the animal.
Hitcheable animals as horses and so, while tammed, can still being hitched to a cart, but they will not move, nor move the cart, if they are ordered to go somewhere. Instead, they will stay on the place, and a message will say they cannot perform that action. Anyway, the cart with the tammed animal hitched can be moved in the normal way (being mounted and driven by a commanding player).
Pets and Combat
Bringing a pet into combat can be desirable, if it is strong enough it can give you a combination bonus and can more easily survive the fight. Against other players it may be enough to tip a fight your way. Against players however only champion or greenish pets are recommended and then only the stronger animals like crocodiles. Having your mount tamed means that it will enter combat with you too but often this means that in PvE whatever creature you fight will probably target your mount and not you. It is not recommended that you tame your mount for combat, this is an easy way to get it killed.
When in combat the taming level of your pet is very important. If it takes a melee hit then this can reduce its taming level. If it takes enough hits without dying it can go un-tame. This cannot be achieved with archery however, it must be a melee weapon. Thus when entering combat with a pet its important that the pet has the highest loyalty level you can achieve.
Having said that only the champion or greenish are preferred it should be pointed out that while a pet is alive and targeting an enemy it is stopping them from regaining stamina. If you can break off combat long enough to recover some yourself this also may be enough to put the fight in your favour.
Notice about Taming Difficulty
As of February 2008, when Mol-Rehan was introduced, taming was made much harder. While past mechanics allowed you to just try and tame again when you failed, the new system will make the animal go aggressive and attack you if you fail by too large a margin. Additionally, it will lose a level of loyalty when this happens. All animals also had their taming difficulty severely raised, making it very hard to tame a champion class animal and a gruesome project to tame even an ordinary bear with as high as 50 taming. You are advised to take extreme caution when attempting to tame something, preferably by fencing the animal in and taking refuge outside the gate if the animal goes berserk on you.
If you want to stop attacking a pet that has gone aggressive, move a few tiles away, right-click on ground and choose No target (if you have "Display 'no target' in menus" option checked in Settings).
If the animal has at least a single level of loyalty left after going aggressive from a failed taming, it will revert to its tamed status again after a while, provided nobody attacks it. Naturally neutral animals such as pigs, roosters, pheasants and unicorns will also return to their neutral state some time after a fail. Don't forget that deed and tower guards attack hostile animals if summoned, but only if the animal is naturally hostile. For example, guards will attack a crocodile if summoned, but will ignore a berserk unicorn.
Certain animals are much easily kept tame than others. An upset status dog can remain tame for a day or two. However, be aware that a crocodile at upset or nervous level could go untamed any second since they are very aggressive animals.
Messages
- [The animal] sniffs the air and looks too nervous to focus.
- Move the animal to another spot or off deed before taming.
Guides
Here's a compilation of guide pages for taming.
Taming Skill Levels
- 00 Pigs, Dogs, Rats, Deer, Mountain Lion, Wildcat
- 05 Wolves, Cows/Bulls
- 07 Horses
- 15 Brown Bears
- 15 Young Champion Wolves
- 20 Black Bears
- 35 Cavebugs
- 35-40 Unicorns
- 40 Crocodiles
- 50+ Champion Unicorns
- 70 Hell horse
Beware: These levels are recommendations, not hard requirements. It is to your advantage to wait, however, as trying to tame at too low a level can result in your death or the loss of potentially hundreds of food items in the attempt.
Titles
- Animal Trainer at 50 skill
- Beast Speaker at 70 skill
- Beastmaster at 90 skill
